


Driving with One Hand Out the Window

by slashmania



Series: 50 Thousand Words (from October to December!) [13]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur will not claim he injured himself playing tennis. Not even to lie to the doctor, Driving, Emergency Rooms, M/M, Small Talk, tearing your rotator cuff on the job, tearing your rotator cuff while protecting the guy who likes you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmania/pseuds/slashmania
Summary: “You've torn your rotator cuff and your arm is in a sling now, Arthur! You need both hands to drive.”Arthur glared, but rather than bickering about how he had gotten them there in one piece while driving one handed, he changed tactics.“I don’t need both hands if I’m playing it cool and driving with one hand out the rolled down window, asshole. I drove here one handed with a torn rotator cuff, so I'll drive one handed back!”
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: 50 Thousand Words (from October to December!) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1503791
Kudos: 40





	Driving with One Hand Out the Window

**Author's Note:**

> Day 13: Drive  
> 1,379 words

“Give me your keys, I’ll drive you home.”

“It’s my car. I got us here, and I will drive us back.”

“You've torn your rotator cuff and your arm is in a sling now, Arthur! You need both hands to drive.”

Arthur glared, but rather than bickering about how he had gotten them there in one piece while driving one handed, he changed tactics.

“I don’t need both hands if I’m playing it cool and driving with one hand out the rolled down window, asshole. I drove here one handed with a torn rotator cuff, so I'll drive one handed back!”

While Arthur was arguing, Eames had snaked one hand into Arthur’s pocket and stole the car keys. He jingled them in front of Arthur’s nose and said, “Thank you for detailing how I can look really cool while driving your car, Arthur. Get in the passenger seat and relax.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated my life more than now,” Arthur groaned.

He ended up in the backseat, as far away from Eames as he could manage without calling an Uber and driving separately.

Eames got in the front seat, and looked over his shoulder at Arthur, who would have laid down on the backseat if he could, but didn’t want to risk the ticket. And his shoulder still fucking _hurt._ He was morosely buckling his seat belt one handed when Eames started talking.

“I’ve got tons of questions for you, Arthur.”

“I’d rather not answer a ton of your questions, Mr. Eames. I just want to go home and feel bad for myself.”

For a moment Eames just looked at him, then turned back to face the windshield. He buckled himself in, started the car, and then started driving.

He lasted for three minutes on the road before he finally started talking.

“I’m sorry that you hurt your arm.”

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur said, leaning back in his seat and staring at the car roof. “The doctor said I should try and avoid any repetitive motions with this arm. Wear the sling. Take pain relievers."

Eames already knew these things because he'd been with Arthur when he saw the doctor. He helped corroborate the story he and Arthur came up with on the drive, that Arthur had fallen rather than was injured while playing tennis (Arthur had grit his teeth on the drive to the emergency room and said "Fuck tennis!").

Eames had helped Arthur lie to the nurses and the doctor when he went into the emergency room to take care of the injury that Arthur had first tried to say was nothing, then realized how much weaker the one arm was than the other, and decided that something was probably wrong.

Their cover story was about a fall and not tennis. It was also not about how Arthur had torn his rotator cuff rescuing Eames from a guy with a knife. Neither Arthur nor Eames mentioned the bastard with a knife, or what they had been up to before the bastard with a knife appeared. They took care to stash their weapons and PASIV somewhere safe so they could pick them up on the way back from the emergency room.

“Your bruises are going to last for days, love,” Eames said. “Thanks for kicking that man’s ass for me.”

Arthur snorted. “I didn’t kick his ass for you. I knocked him out the quickest way I could so he’d stop trying to stab you. There’s a difference. But you’re welcome, Eames.”

“Does ‘What is your favorite radio station?’ count as one of those questions you don’t want to answer right now?”

Arthur shook his head, but verbalized it too in case Eames was too busy navigating traffic to see him.

“I don’t need to listen to music right now.”

“Well I wasn’t going to turn it on yet, I was just asking a polite question about your tastes in music.”

“I like KROQ. When I was younger I'd listen to the Kevin and Bean morning show on the way to school.”

“See, I like learning new things about you, Arthur.”

Eames smiled and Arthur could spot it from his seat.

That was one thing that Arthur could rarely understand about Eames, but tried to. The man seemed to have an honest interest in what Arthur thought and said. He wanted to learn things about Arthur, wanted to have conversations with Arthur.

It was rare for Arthur because hardly anyone wanted to talk to the point man unless they actually had to. Eames was the first person that Arthur had ever argued back and forth with during a job. They debated things, too.

It wasn’t something that was unique to a forger; it was something that was unique to Eames. So Arthur understood that he should be kinder to the man, he should be kinder to this guy who after inspecting Arthur's shoulder and frowning at the pained noises Arthur was trying to stifle suggested they go for a ride, and then sat in the passenger seat while Arthur (in pain but still capable of doing this) drove _them both_ to the emergency room for an X-ray and actual medical advice.

But the pain medicine that Arthur had been given wasn’t something he should be driving under the influence of. Or that was Eames’s argument once they were leaving the emergency room.

“You know I’m completely sound,” Arthur began to argue softly. “I am not compromised or anything. I am not seeing things or behaving erratically. They could have just given me a Tylenol.”

"It was a horse pill, love."

"Fine, a gigantic Tylenol."

“But would you be able to take control of this car if you had to take evasive action?”

“Maybe I would have a better chance as long as you were able to shoot at things from your side of the car...if you hadn't stashed your gun along with mine before taking me to the emergency room, that is.”

Eames considered this, but gave Arthur another hypothetical problem that would inhibit his driving.

“How about if there are sudden high winds that push your car on the road, forcing you to keep correcting your course?”

“I would pull over on the shoulder and see if the winds would stop.”

“...or you politely ask your friend Eames to take the wheel and get you home.”

“Are you going to insist that you'll be helpful in the next seven or eight problems you describe?”

“I’m not going to leave you behind to deal with this. You saved me so I’m going to appear in each hypothetical example because I would also like to help you out any way...And I like you, but I thought that it was pretty obvious. I’m just saying it to get it out there!”

Arthur blinked. That was a confession. A confession of sorts. Probably an obvious confession because Eames didn’t really dance around the important things, and Arthur always listened to Eames seriously, so Arthur cleared his throat and said: “Pull over, Eames.”

Eames complied, but looked over his shoulder at Arthur as he did it. They were now parked on a street lined with houses, in an empty spot Eames’s was lucky to get in such a crowded neighborhood with few driveways.

Arthur unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, and struggled to get out of his seat. Eames didn’t stop him, but watched him half in curiosity, half in sick worry. It struck Arthur that it must look like he was getting out of the car and ditching Eames.

Arthur slammed the door to the backseat, then opened the front passenger door and clambered in.

“I didn’t want to continue this conversation in the backseat like you were my driver.”

“Technically I am.”

“I want you to shut up, please. I want you to listen to me when I say this. I like you too. I think you’re great-”

Eames frowned to himself. “Is this what being broken up with feels like?”

“I’m not breaking up with you because we aren’t together yet. Fuck, why does this have to be so hard to say? I’m not going to say that I love you from the backseat of my car!”

And Eames swallowed hard. Then he said, “Okay, darling.”


End file.
